


The Hollow Men (Tenth Doctor Meta)

by elisi



Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Hollow Men - T. S. Eliot
Genre: Doctor Who meta, Gen, Meta, My final word on Ten, Poetry: The Hollow Men, Russell T. Davies Era, T.S. Eliot - Freeform, Ten is meta catnip, Ten was just so very screwed up, Tenth Doctor Era, Tenth Doctor meta, The Time War as WW1, This is pretty bleak tbh, but that's why we love him, elisi's meta café, metaphors are my kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 09:36:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15638052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisi/pseuds/elisi
Summary: More meta from the Meta café. This time from 2012. This is basically THE Tenth Doctor meta I always wanted to write and never knew how. (Should have suspected it'd all come down to Eliot...)The idea for this first came to me after watching The Lazarus Experiment wherein the Doctor and Lazarus quote 'The Hollow Men' by T. S. Eliot. I sat down to read it, and was completely and utterly blown away. This was the result, because that poemisthe Tenth Doctor. (To create this I ended up reading Heart of Darkness and Dante and sort-of taught myself how to use a proper graphics programme. All in all it was 7-8 months between idea and final result.)So without further ado I shall let you see for yourselves. Lengthy meta-heavy notes at the end explaining all my choices/thoughts.





	The Hollow Men (Tenth Doctor Meta)

  


  


[](http://elisi.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/2807/207142)

 

  
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** Notes **

I'll start by quoting a little background:

> "The Hollow Men" begins with a quote from Joseph Conrad's famous novella Heart of Darkness, the story of a colonial Englishman who goes power-hungry in Africa, and things only go downhill from there. Eliot's poem is about a group of scarecrow-like individuals who exist in a state between life and death and suffer from a serious case of moral paralysis. They are forever trapped on the banks of the River Styx, the ancient Greek symbol for the dividing line between life and death. Some critics consider "The Hollow Men" to be a companion piece for Eliot's most famous work, The Waste Land, another poem about moral paralysis.
> 
> Eliot's poems from the 1920s are often read in a political context as a reaction to the aftermath of World War I. Eliot was preoccupied with the idea of a European literary and ethical tradition, and he saw this tradition fragmenting everywhere around him. He turned, as he often did, to his favorite Italian poet Dante Alighieri, whose Inferno was inspiration for this poem. "The Hollow Men" was published in 1925, three years after The Waste Land. In 1948, Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature

**Text of the Poem**

  


>   
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>  _Mistah Kurtz—he dead._
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> 

I know I wrote meta about Ten as Kurtz, but overall the Master is a better fit, especially as he was _actually_ mad and set up a kingdom for himself. Which makes Ten Marlow, the one friend who mourns him. Visually it's a very striking image, especially as I love anything to do with Ten and fire-imagery. Also... the fire might consume the body, but the Master will be back. Given that what the whole poem centres around is people neither dead nor alive, this struck me as a very fitting beginning.

>   
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> _A penny for the Old Guy_
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My dear Nine. I hesitated over using Nine, but I wanted him in there _somewhere_ and the Guy Fawkes associations have changed greatly over the years. He now - largely thanks to V for Vendetta - is now seen as a symbol of people-power, and I think Nine definitely fits as someone trying to change the system. And Nine - like Guy Fawkes - was ultimately unsuccessful in his plot. (OK, so it's a tenuous link. I just like the cap, especially as he's not really there: another character caught between life and death.)

>   
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> I  
>  We are the hollow men  
>  We are the stuffed men  
>  Leaning together  
>  Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!  
>  Our dried voices, when  
>  We whisper together  
>  Are quiet and meaningless  
>  As wind in dry grass  
>  Or rats' feet over broken glass  
>  In our dry cellar
> 
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> 

This is very obvious. The Family of Blood (scarecrows, literally), neither alive nor dead. And the Doctor... hollowed out by loss and war and infinite loneliness - the Doctor who had found fulfillment and meaning as the hollow and non-existent John Smith - now only has rage and vengeance left. The Family had each other, but the Doctor separates them so they become as lonely and empty as him. (It's also worth bearing in mind that when Eliot wrote this poem, World War I was simply _The_ World War, just as for the Doctor there is _The_ Time War. Unparalleled in destruction and reach, and world changing.)

>   
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> Shape without form, shade without colour,  
>  Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
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This one took me forever to work out, but once I'd found this cap I realised it could never have been any different. (For long, in-depth exploration of that scene, see [this post](http://elisi.livejournal.com/719186.html).) Also, you won't find a better expression of 'moral paralysis'. (Also it's of course a nice reference to the Shades from Dante's Inferno - but that is a different essay.)

  


>   
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> Those who have crossed  
>  With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom  
>  Remember us—if at all—not as lost  
>  Violent souls, but only  
>  As the hollow men  
>  The stuffed men.
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This was always going to be River. (I am _not_ going in to all the ways in which her name is fitting, because I'd have to go read up on Greek myths and beliefs and I do not have the time...) Mostly it's all very straightforward, but the interesting thing is the introduction of 'Death's other Kingdom' - because what struck me as I was working on this was the fact that Ten's era is steeped in death and yet... It's not literal death. Rose gets stuck in another world. The Master chooses to 'die'. Jenny dies, yet lives. Jack dies and dies, yet always comes back. Donna has her memory wiped. The Timelords are locked inside the Time War. Ten regenerates. And River lives on in the Library. They are dead, and yet they live... River is the odd one out, as she is the only one who is _actually_ dead, and stays that way. It's also important to note that she 'crossed with direct eyes' [to Death's Other Kingdom] - eyes (and the lack thereof) are of huge importance in this poem, and River's clear-sightedness (and knowledge of the future) is one of her main features. (She is/will become his guide/story teller.) River may lie, but she does not lie to herself. But Ten does, and oh, there is one of the causes of that hollowness... Also the cap was a pure gift - River literally caught _between_. All I had to do was add Ten.

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> II  
>  Eyes I dare not meet in dreams  
>  In death's dream kingdom  
>  These do not appear:  
>  There, the eyes are  
>  Sunlight on a broken column  
>  There, is a tree swinging  
>  And voices are  
>  In the wind's singing  
>  More distant and more solemn  
>  Than a fading star.
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And Gallifrey. (Couldn't be anything else what with the 'fading star'.) I am almost at a loss to say anything because it's so stark and beautiful. 'Eyes I dare not meet in dreams' is possibly the most lyrical description of Ten's feelings re. his people ever, and even more fitting is 'There, the eyes are/Sunlight on a broken column'. Again with the sun/fire imagery, but I feel that the 'broken column' is almost more important - I've used this metaphor of Timelords/Gallifrey as being [broken] stone throughout. Once mighty, but now fallen... [Insert Ozymandias quote]

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> Let me be no nearer  
>  In death's dream kingdom  
>  Let me also wear  
>  Such deliberate disguises  
>  Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves  
>  In a field  
>  Behaving as the wind behaves  
>  No nearer—
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This took a while to work out, but in the end I went with Ten's goodbyes... He is, then, himself in that other kingdom, caught between life and death, and very much fits this description. Always distant, and moving further away.

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> Not that final meeting  
>  In the twilight kingdom
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I was told this was a reference to Dante meeting Beatrice... Which is why I embarked upon The Divine Comedy. I am very happy I did. (I've still got to read Paradiso, but that's irrelevant as concerns this - Ten would never get to heaven.) Dante is guided all the way down through Hell and all the way up Mount Purgatory by Virgil (a poet and a doctor), before he finally meets Beatrice, the woman he has always loved, ever since he first saw her, age 9. The thing is, Dante only ever met Beatrice on a handful of occasions, they both got married to other people, and she died age 24. I'm going to quote wikipedia, because it gets it spot-on:

_Dante saw Beatrice as a saviour, one who removed all evil intentions from him. It is perhaps this idea of her being a force for good that he fell in love with, a force which he believed made him a better person._

When - in his poem - they finally meet, he cannot meet her eyes, as he is still tainted with sin, and feels utterly unworthy of her. Beatrice is also (there are layers and _layers_ to the Comedy) an expression of the Divine, and is the one who is trying to save him. Which is where it all becomes too beautifully painful for Ten... Rose is very much his Beatrice, yet the whole Divine Comedy collapses around his ears and turns to Tragedy, because _he doesn't believe_ in any kind of God. So how can Rose be an instrument of the Saviour, when salvation is impossible? It's a perfect catch-22. 

_For who would bear the whips and scorns of time/.../But that the dread of something after death/.../And thus the native hue of resolution/Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought._ He loses his Rose, his perfect Beatrice (= his projection, I'm not talking about the actual, real Rose), and from then on keeps falling - it's almost like The Divine Comedy in reverse. So no, our Ten does not believe he can be saved and will not meet her eyes (metaphorically speaking, obviously).

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> III  
>  This is the dead land  
>  This is cactus land  
>  Here the stone images  
>  Are raised, here they receive  
>  The supplication of a dead man's hand  
>  Under the twinkle of a fading star.
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Gallifrey again. Of course there is the 'fading star' tying it in with the earlier stanza, but the cap itself was always going to be this one. And 'supplication of a dead man's hand' - particularly the subversion of 'supplication' - yeah, I am very pleased with it. (Plus 'twinkle of a fading star' could also refer to the White Point Star diamond!)

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> Is it like this  
>  In death's other kingdom  
>  Waking alone  
>  At the hour when we are  
>  Trembling with tenderness  
>  Lips that would kiss  
>  Form prayers to broken stone.
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The Companions. That they all fitted in here was almost more luck than design, but I am very happy with the end result. 'Death's other kingdom' is so very obviously poor Donna. 'Walking alone' is Rose - or the lack of - she is there mostly by her absence. But it's the last two lines that sprung out at me right from the start: 'Lips that would kiss/Form prayers to broken stone' could only ever be Martha. Again with the stone imagery (particularly as something to be worshipped; yet broken, fallen, unworthy) - especially apt as she became his apostle. But it was not what she wanted... I guess this could also be seen as a vague reference to the hollowness of John Smith. Ten on the screen doesn't exist then, as he is locked away - an abstract, unattainable. And that is how he stays, for Martha.

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> IV  
>  The eyes are not here  
>  There are no eyes here  
>  In this valley of dying stars  
>  In this hollow valley  
>  This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
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I'm just going to let the caps speak for themselves, because I don't think there's anything I could add. Two dying men, and their lost Kingdom.

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> In this last of meeting places  
>  We grope together  
>  And avoid speech  
>  Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
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Same again. The Doctor and the Master. I have nothing to add.

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> Sightless, unless  
>  The eyes reappear  
>  As the perpetual star  
>  Multifoliate rose  
>  Of death's twilight kingdom  
>  The hope only  
>  Of empty men.
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This was only ever going to be Rose, but oh, it's fits so perfectly it _hurts_. (I love how beautifully it sets it all up, just to brutally undercut it with those last two lines.)

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> V  
>  _Here we go round the prickly pear_  
>  _Prickly pear prickly pear_  
>  _Here we go round the prickly pear_  
>  _At five o'clock in the morning._
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I found this cap (they're holding hands!) and never looked back...

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> Between the idea  
>  And the reality  
>  Between the motion  
>  And the act  
>  Falls the Shadow  
>                                          _For Thine is the Kingdom_
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Waters of Mars. (Has there ever been a better description? 'Between the idea and the reality/Falls the Shadow'. Makes me shiver. _For Thine is the Kingdom._ Oh Ten.)

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> Between the conception  
>  And the creation  
>  Between the emotion  
>  And the response  
>  Falls the Shadow  
>                                          _Life is very long_
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I wanted something to tie in with The Lazarus Experiment, and this rather sprung out at me - especially 'Life is very long', as it ties in with the discussion in the church. ( _The Doctor: "I’m old enough to know that a longer life isn’t always a better one. In the end, you just get tired. Tired of the struggle. Tired of losing everyone that matters to you. Tried of watching everything turn to dust. If you live long enough, Lazarus, the only certainty left is that you end up alone."_ Bleakest Doctor ever.)

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> Between the desire  
>  And the spasm  
>  Between the potency  
>  And the existence  
>  Between the essence  
>  And the descent  
>  Falls the Shadow  
>                                          _For Thine is the Kingdom_
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This kinda broke my heart. ( _'For Thine is the Kingdom.'_ And the crown is hollow...)

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> For Thine is  
>  Life is  
>  For Thine is the
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And of course the future belongs to Eleven. You cannot be caught indefinitely between life and death. The Doctor needs to _live_. (Also Eleven and Nine serve as bookends, which is neat.)

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> _This is the way the world ends_  
>  _This is the way the world ends_  
>  _This is the way the world ends_  
>  _Not with a bang but a whimper._
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This might be my favourite image of all. I chose the cap very deliberately - Ten is not the focus, just a figure in the shadows, almost lost in the wide shot - and all around there are festive lights: Pretty; indifferent. The world keeps turning, oblivious to the ending of this particular story. 


End file.
